


did you miss me when the sun came up?

by ggwynbleidd



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Pre-Canon, Pre-Klok, Recreational Drug Use, Toxic Relationship, alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26850400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggwynbleidd/pseuds/ggwynbleidd
Summary: None of what happened between Magnus and Pickles was planned, but it had happened all the same. There was no erasing that.
Relationships: Magnus Hammersmith/Pickles The Drummer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	did you miss me when the sun came up?

It wasn’t supposed to happen.

Those sort of feelings can ruin a friendship. Even with a connection, that spark of flame or crackle of electricity, it wasn’t worth the risk.

They had sat in the park sipping liquor from plastic cups. Watched the ducks as they floated by in small groups. Sometimes one or two would waddle close by to see if they had any food, only to waddle back to the water in disappointment.

“Aw, look, he was a little girlfriend,” Pickles said and pointed at a pair of ducks. A bright green head pressed against a plain brown one, beaks clacking together in an almost kiss. A second female joined them and preened the male. “Two girlfriends!”

“Good for him,” slurred Magnus.

Why were they even here? It had been on Pickles’ mind since it was suggested. To get a bottle of vodka and some fast food, sit in the park and hang out. Well...here they were. In the park, hanging out. Pickles took a sip of his drink and grimaced - too little soda and too much alcohol, watered down by the ice that was quickly melting in the summer heat. It was Magnus’ idea. Why this, of all things?

A large hand on Pickles’ thigh seemed to answer his question. He let it rest there. Didn’t move it. Didn’t speak out about it, his tongue strangled in his mouth by the vodka and the heat from the sun and the heat burning in his skin. Nothing else even happened that day, Magnus possibly put off by Pickles’ lack of reciprocation. But it had happened.

He hadn’t said anything about it and hoped that maybe, just maybe, it was a one off thing fueled by their drinking. But then the party. It was always parties, wasn’t it? At least for Pickles. Loud music and another drink in his hand and a blunt in the other and happy conversation. Shapes and figures swimming around him in the poorly lit house like he was underwater.

“Hey man!” the voice wasn’t louder than the music but it tore through his body harder than the bass in the song. Magnus was by his ear faster than he expected him to be not, not that he even expected him to be at this fucking party in the first place. “Good to see you!”

And suddenly Pickles was yanked into a hug. He felt his drink slosh over his hand, sticky in between his fingers, felt those large hands on his back as skinny arms wrapped around him like hungry snakes. His face was pressed against Magnus’ chest and he felt his chin rest on the top of his head. Maybe he was just an affectionate drunk. The lovey-dovey sort who had a few beers and suddenly he was on any-and-everyone. Pickles had seen Magnus drunk plenty of times before and knew he wasn’t. Maybe quicker to anger, maybe a little more sad, but definitely not whatever this was.

It felt like he was trapped in the embrace for ten years at the very least. Time had slowed around them and enveloped them in a little protective cocoon for him to savor this moment. Whatever there was to savor. Nose crushed against dark denim, Pickles inhaled. To breathe. Certainly not to smell him. But Magnus did have a smell - cigarettes and dragon’s blood incense and a deep, musky cologne applied a little too heavily and that faint smell of hormonal something that men carried in their sweat. It made his head swim. It was too much. Overpowering.

He smelled it again only a few weeks later. It permeated Magnus’ entire room. The dragon’s blood had burned the entire time he was there, to mask the smell of cigarettes and weed. But it just smelled like weed and cigarettes and incense, layers of smoke drifting through the room and hanging like pale blue-grey ghosts in the faint light filtered through ragged curtains. Pickles spent all fucking day in that room. He hadn’t even planned on it.

“I got the new Testament record, wanna get baked and listen to it?” Magnus had offered, dangling the vinyl over his head like an inviting piece of bait. Pickles had bitten.

The faint scratching of a record still rotating on its player despite the album finishing long ago was the only noise in the room. He could hear faint conversation from Magnus’ roommates but it was so distant it was like Pickles was remembering a conversation rather than hearing it. It was just the two of them in this room. Pickles had just meant to go in and out, drop off some money for gas and leave. But the draw of Testament had been too strong. Pickles didn’t even like Testament. And walking into Magnus’ room had been like going into a bear’s cave. Dark and quiet, a sense of foreboding. Stacks of books and records and comics sitting with empty beer cans and cigarette cartons. And then Magnus sat in his lair, sprawled out on his bed next to Pickles.

That hand was on his thigh again. It moved this time, long fingers tracing a little circle at the hem of his shorts. He could feel the callouses from years of fretting on his skin.

“Your hand’s cold,” Pickles commented in a soft, croaking voice, gravelly from the smoking. It felt like something shattered in the room as he spoke. Like he specifically had broken something by speaking about what was happening at all.

“Sorry,” Magnus said quietly.

“S’okay,” he mumbled. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, hard to turn, but he managed. Magnus was already staring. “Hm?”

“Hm?” he echoed. He smiled a wide, toothy grin. Pickles had never noticed how crooked his teeth were. Or the freckles that dotted his face. Or the thin little scar on his left cheek. “Can’t I look at you?”

Could he?

“You can,” Pickles decided. He watched as Magnus rolled onto his side and felt the absence of his hand on his leg. The same hand slinked down to his side to draw him closer. “Magnus-”

“Pickles,” teased Magnus as he pressed their foreheads together.

It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did, and it kept happening and happening and happening. Days grew short and cold and it kept happening and Magnus’ skin stayed cold. Sometimes it felt like he was sharing a bed with a corpse. But then those cold fingers moved across Pickles’ skin and lit a fire in their wake. The overpowering smell of cologne and incense became just another part of Pickles’ life and it clung to his clothes the same way Magnus clung to him at night. Possessive. All-encompassing. Overpowering.

Things escalated faster than he ever meant them to. More time at the park, at parties, the movies, the two of them in bed. And Pickles found another bed he could fall into. And fall and fall and fall, getting lost somewhere in an ocean of sheets and limbs and curls. The curls! God, how could he forget those. The way they’d hang around the two of them and blot out the light as Magnus loomed over him. Like it really was just the two of them in the world together. The way they felt in his hands as he grabbed fistfuls of them at the scalp, guiding Magnus’ head this way and that. Touch me here, touch me there, do this, do that. Magnus always listened so well.

“I love you,” was whispered from between his legs one night, big brown eyes boring a hole into Pickles’ soul.

“I love you, too,” was whispered back without a thought, the fuzzy warmth pulsing through his body choking back any sense.

Then Magnus had a fight with his roommates and Pickles’ lease was up, so why not? A studio apartment and an unquestioning landlord later and they had a place of their own. Just theirs, just the two of them existing in that space. It became a home faster than either of them intended or planned - shelves brimming with combined book and record collections, a bong or two on the coffee table, tapestries and posters and rugs on the walls and floors. And the ever lingering scent of dragon’s blood that made Pickles smile.

The winter thawed to spring and as the flowers bloomed, things turned bitter. Boyfriend was an unintentional collar on Pickles’ neck that choked him. Wasn’t that just the coupled life, though? The old ball and chain? The ball and chain who clung to him in the night like he was going to fly away, who cried and sobbed and ranted and raved and screamed at the slightest thing? It wasn’t the anger itself that was off-putting or scary. It wasn’t the good foot in height Magnus had on him. It somehow wasn’t even the collection of knives in the apartment, always in reach.

It was his eyes. Darting and suspicious and angry one moment, sweet and flowing with tears and apologetic the next. The way Magnus’ gaze even at its saddest could drill through Pickles no matter what and make him a puddle in his arms again. And of course, after every augment, Magnus knew how to pay him back. He was always so good at apologizing.

“I’m sorry!” Magnus sobbed out underneath him, covering his face in his hands. He always covered his face, or hid it, or looked away, or twisted Pickles into a position where they didn’t make eye contact. “Fuck, I’m-”

“It’s okay,” soothed Pickles with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He tried to ignore the uncomfortable stickiness between his legs as he slipped off of Magnus to rest at his side. Those eyes looked at him sorrowfully, wide and sad and wet, and Pickles felt more disgust than pity. “It’s really not a big deal, it happens.”

“I know, I just...fuck!” snapped Magnus as he stared up at the ceiling.

Having to constantly soothe an ego that was damaged at the slightest whisper of negativity was exhausting. A hand on his back, rubbing circles, a kiss against a tear-streaked cheek. There were only so many times and ways Pickles could say no, he didn’t hate him. He wasn’t mad. Because anything set him off. Laugh at a joke the wrong way, or laugh in a way that made it seem like he was laughing at Magnus, or ask him to turn down the TV or his guitar amp, anything. It would all set him off into a burst of anger or tears. The sound of a riff ending sourly set Pickles on edge, knowing he would look over to see Magnus plucking strands of hair from his scalp in frustration, like that would fix it.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this.

Somehow, after a year, their friendship was saved at the very least. Pickles was thankful enough for that. Because once they were able to find roommates and move into their own spaces and stop fucking each other, it was normal again. They would just smoke their weed and listen to records and talk. And that was it.

“With enough room for Jesus?” Magnus playfully jeered once, eyeing the space Pickles put between the two of them.

“With enough room for Jesus, yeah,” Pickles joked back. “Don’t forget to pass Him the blunt.”

The smell of dragon’s blood still clung to the back of his throat.

It was like watching Magnus turn into another person yet again, another chrysalis he broke free from. The man he missed - fun and outgoing and witty. The person he had set next to in the park, the person he had laid next to on his bed watching smoke curl in the air. Pickles wondered if there had been something wrong with him. Had he not been enough?

Then the other Magnus showed up again, worse than before, and as Pickles had to break up random fights between him and the other guys he realized he had been enough. Magnus just was fucked in the head and was fixable, but refused the help to get there. And Pickles watched him rock on his mattress and pull his hair after Murderface called him a jackass. But he didn’t cry.

When had he stopped crying?

“You okay?” Pickles asked as he sat down next to him. Magnus sucked in a trembling breath and stared at him. “Man, you really can’t let him get to you. He was just joking.”

“It feels like he fuckin’ hates me,” replied Magnus with such a genuine hurt to his voice. It had just been a voice. Just been an off-hand comment. “Like, I don’t get it man, I-”

And he was off, talking about how much effort he put into Dethklok, how he busted his ass. How hard he tried to make sure everything sounded good enough for when the album was going to come out. They were signed to a record label now, after all, whatever they came out with had to sound better than the demo at least. His ranting quieted after Pickles’ nodding and soft noises to show he was listening. Then the silence rushed around them like suffocating waves.

The hand found its way to Pickles’ thigh again. Now this, this was not supposed to happen.

“Do you still love me?” asked Magnus against his throat.

“No,” Pickles answered him. It was the truth.

“Oh,” the response was quiet. “Okay.”

Pickles had peeled himself from Magnus’ sleepy, clinging grip as soon as he could. The regret stuck to his skin like a greasy film and stayed even after he took a shower. In the morning, Magnus tried to catch his eye and Pickles pointedly ignored him. If he could ignore him until they had to practice later that night it was going to be fine. But he felt them. Those eyes. Gazing directly into his soul and Pickles so desperately wanted to shout. Ask him what the fuck he was staring at, what did he even expect, why did he think that was a good idea? Why did either of them think any of what they had done was a good idea?

Pickles never got the chance to ask that. The last he saw of Magnus was a swollen and bloody face before he was gone forever.

Forever being ten years, give or take.

The summer air was humid and oppressive and Pickles felt a cold sweat creep on his body despite the heat. His arms were crossed over his chest, on guard, and he stared up at Magnus with a furrowed brow.

“Hello, Magnus,” Pickles said softly.

That gaze bore into his soul yet again. Those eyes.

Eye.

“Hello, Pickles,” replied Magnus with a smirk.

Toki’s smiling face was in Pickles’ periphery, Magnus keeping a hold on his shoulder and pressing him against his side in a way Pickles would have called protective if he didn’t know better.

Could Toki smell dragon’s blood, too?


End file.
